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Consistent Price Controls – Pricing can impact all business functions at distribution companies including marketing, sales, and finance. In more complex organizations, pricing processes often vary by geography, product, and line of business – which can make it nearly impossible to present consistent pricing to customers. A distribution solution provides centralized control over pricing as well as capabilities to allow for price variations along nearly any relevant variable.
INCREASING CUSTOMER LOYALTY WITH A DISTRIBUTION SOLUTION Given the global competitive pressures wholesale distributors face and the continuing consolidation among retailers that distributors serve, a key strategy to defend your existing revenue and market share is through increased customer loyalty. There are two general strategies for using a distribution solution to improve customer loyalty: increased customer satisfaction and establishing deeper customer relationships. A distribution solution can increase customer satisfaction by enabling you to offer better services and direct access to the products you sell. A solution like Openbravo improves service levels to your customers with faster and more accurate ordering that reduce delays and ensure order quality. For example, it helps your salespeople by auto-populating customer records with that specific customer’s discount schedule whenever a quote is initiated. The solution also provides reporting and a complete integrated system for auditing orders from your customers. While large wholesale distributors may have contracts that support all conditions, for most medium and small distributors, the ordering and shipping process usually begins with the sales department and is passed to the financial department for approval. Once approved, the request is transferred to a warehouse where the warehouse manager needs to decide when it can be fulfilled. Because this process is so manual, it tends to be very error prone. For some examples of these errors, please see the sidebar: ‘Common Problems with Traditional Purchasing Processes’. A distribution solution helps eliminate the common problems of traditional purchasing processing by integrating all elements for a successful transaction in a single database and providing more accurate information to your sales team. Self-service for distribution customers is a key tenet to establishing deeper relationships with your customers. For example, making it easier for customers to place orders through self-service access to your ordering system or making it easier for your customers to pay you by ensuring accurate invoices are available to your customer at the right time, and are communicated correctly. The solution also minimizes the risk of payment disputes and costly product returns – both of which compromise customer loyalty and attack your profit margins. Since a distribution solution ensures accurate information on available product quantities, when they will ship, and when they will arrive, your customers can rely on you with greater confidence to meet their needs. A solution like Openbravo also streamlines the payment process for customers so it’s easier for them to do business with you. It accomplishes this by generating automated alerts to your finance
COMMON PROBLEMS WITH TRADITIONAL PURCHASING PROCESSES Wrong Discount: A sales person gives a discount from the wrong price, the finance department corrects and the customer is overcharged. Incorrect Orders: Because inventory management systems aren’t integrated, manually re-entering data between systems introduces an error. Minimum Quantity: Particularly for lot-inventory, the quantity ordered fails to meet the minimum shipping quantity. Unavailable Inventory: Requested inventory is unavailable because manual inventory counts always lag available inventory. Wrong Destination: For customers with multiple sites, the proper shipment is sent to the wrong location.